Paul Sankey argues the Venezuela deal is specifically good for Chevron because Chevron never left Venezuela, does not carry the same legal baggage as Exxon, and is seeing volumes grow rapidly there. Chevron is best positioned among the majors for that agreement.
Refining system extremely tight with refiners at 96% utilization, product margins massive (gasoline $140/bbl vs Brent $90), gasoline inventories at bottom of range, real oil crisis is in refined products not crude.
US gasoline demand has stayed high and US gasoline prices are structurally cheap compared to countries like Germany ($8/gallon), suggesting that gasoline prices have room to remain elevated or increase; blaming price gouging for high prices is unfounded.